In the spirit of peer pressure, I'd like to bet against your prediction that I will blow up. If I blow up, I will invite you to a restaurant of your choice in a city of my choice. If I don't blow up, you will invite me to a restaurant of my choice in a city of my choice. An additional part of the bet is time. You pick a time when I blow up (in six months, in one year, in two months, in two weeks?) Since you are SO sure that I am "going to blow up," I expect you to accept the bet. Also, 95% traders blow up, and the odds favor you, so I expect you to accept the bet. Only idiots would let 95% favorable odds pass by.
woke up early today. turned on computer before 8am CT very rare. It seemed there was one good setup before 8am, but I thought the crazy pit traders might cause trouble to me, so I let it pass. I entered immediately after 8am, but I cut the winner short with two ticks profit. Then I believed I missed one or two opportunities. The second time I entered, I cut the winner short again with one tick profit. Both times I removed stop and entered a limit target order. I didn't take too much heat in both trades, but I got into the habit of getting out if it didn't go in my direction IMMEDIATELY. But the problem is far more worse. I have a very very very serious problem. I will continue to work on it. So far it is the accurate reading of the market that keeps me alive. But I know I am a time bomb that will explode any time. That is why I encourage people to bet against me. You really have a 95% winning probability in betting against me. I am standing on the edge of a cliff, that is my style of trading=I may fall off any time, if I don't tie a rope around my waist to a tree.
How is your account standing? And which size do you trade? How are your daily P/L? Just add a few more details for us. This seems like a joke to me. Do you plan to burn your account? How much screen time do you have and how long do you trade your strategy?
Do you have the discipline for this? "Woke up late" seems to be a regular occurrence. Not trying to be mean.
My account is just above 4500, with a few breakevens in the first week of 2012. If the balance goes above 5000, I will mention it. And I will mention any 500 increase of the balance, same goes with 500 decrease. A few people (maybe more than that) are secretly betting that I will blow up. You are welcome to bet against me. Let me repeat my bet proposal: If I lose (how much? by what time? your choices), I will invite you to a restaurant of your choice in a city of my choice. If I win (how much? by what time? your choices), you will invite me to a restaurant of my choice in a city of my choice. Since you think I am "a joke," I expect you to accept the bet.
Entered a non-setup after pit open. Suddenly I really wanted those oil tards to join the trading, but they refused to join. Maybe some tards tried to go in the opposite direction, against my trade. I waited for close to 20 minutes, and then these tards started to show up. By that time, I already made the mistake that I had worked so hard to avoid. I removed the stop and set a limit cover order with one tick profit. Then my order got filled. And the market continued to go in my direction without me. Then my setup showed up, three times, but I was mentally messed up by the first trade and couldn't enter. So I watched my setup pass, three times. Then I was very disappointed and shut down the computer.
Had a setup, but it happened to be at a support level, and I know how oil tards can be crazy enough to buy support, so I gave up the setup, which turned out to be a winner. Then a few more setups showed up, entered limit orders, but not filled. Then I entered a non-setup, removed the stop, hastily exited with one tick profit.
One of these times, you're not going to get a one tick profit exit. Price will suddenly move the other way, you will be unwilling to take the loss and blow your account. Think of it like no-limit hold'em poker. You don't get pocket aces very often. It's like once in 225 hands. When you finally get pocket aces, you need to maximize the gain. You can't exit with just the blinds as profits if you want to survive. Trading is similar in some respects. Setups are rare. When one forms, you take it and you must maximize your gain. Exiting with one tick profit each time is suicidal because eventually you'll get hit with a loss that is much bigger than one tick.
Fully agree with you, Roark. I will blow up anytime. At this moment, I am seeking advices on how to stop myself from removing stop. If PM works, please drop me a sentence or two. If PM doesn't work, here is my email address: lgeorge80@yahoo.com ("l" is a letter, not a number). Today's result: 2 tick profit. Yes, I removed target and grabbed the 2 tick profit and ran. A few limit entry orders were not filled.
So I turned on the computer before 8 ct, not expecting too many activities, as those few pit traders don't have much effect on the market. After I opened the chart, I saw this drop from 7:30. News must be bad, I thought, this must be a down day. Then I saw this pullback hesitating at around 8:03 CT. So I thought: if the pit traders were not stupid enough to buy up oil, this might be the start of another leg down, so I went short at 101.675. By the way, I changed my trading method yesterday, and I was sure that I would follow the plan with the latest change. It then moved a few ticks up. It didn't look good. At that moment, I removed the stop, I didn't want to lose money, no way, Jose. Then it went up a little more, reaching the price where my stop had been. If I hadn't removed the stop, I would have lost many dollars. So now it became a game of wishing, not trading anymore. I had equities charts on, obviously oil was going up by its own. Someone must be manipulating oil, that idea came across my mind. On the way up, many stops were triggered, I guess. Poor souls, they shouldn't have hard stops, they were run over mercilessly. They should do things like me=remove their stops. As I mentioned, I was in a game of wishing and hoping. But the market went against my wish. Maybe I should have prayed, it might work better. Anyway, the market kept going up, went against my position for more than $1. I thought I would have to post a $500 loss at the end of the day. Then it stopped at 103 and started to come down. I set a limit cover order at 101.40, more than a $1 below the market price, with 10 ticks profit. I figured if I had to wait, I might as well get rewarded by more than 1 or 2 ticks profit. So I waited and did other things and waited. Then I went to the bathroom. While I was sitting on the toilet, the market came down a few ticks (101.50) above my limit cover order (101.40). I came out of the bathroom and decided to exit with one tick profit. So I changed the order to 101.65. A few minutes later, it got triggered, at 11.05 CT. That's 3 hours for 8 bucks. Then I changed my method again in the afternoon. Hopefully I will follow my plan tomorrow.